


never cruel or cowardly

by gallifvrey



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (kind of), Angst, Canon Compliant, Dealing With Trauma, Gen, Meta, PTSD, the doctor dealing with the trauma of regeneration and people around her dying!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22202818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifvrey/pseuds/gallifvrey
Summary: She does a good job of hiding, of running, of distracting her friends from the worst of the universe, of not bringing them places that will remember her, that will know who she is, that will show her friends her legacy. Of course, she can’t run forever and has moments, occasional slips but her friends aren’t there, aren’t watching and she can let the mask slip, for a moment, as she bares her teeth at a Dalek in an imitation of a grin and says her name, and watches with vindication as it moves back in fear.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 147





	never cruel or cowardly

**Author's Note:**

> I kept reading meta about the Doctor and how she was acting this season and then I wrote a nearly 4k word long fic about how the Doctor is acting this season and well, here it is, I suppose!

She is born with a promise on her lips -

_Never cruel or cowardly._

_Try to be nice, and never fail to be kind._

She is born with a promise on her lips but screaming in her head as she remembers - as she remembers everything. All 4.5 billion years coming back at once because the neural blocker helped keep all that at bay but now it is gone. She has Clara back in her memories and it is great, fills a hole in her hearts but now, now she is remembering so, so much more than she could have ever wanted to remember.

Feels the screams in her head, suffocating, she is dying, she is dying over and over again and her fists ache in phantom pain, she thinks her knuckles might be bloody red from hitting the diamond wall and - she is falling, falling, falling and it goes dark.

She doesn’t remember who she is, but she remembers the promise. Never cruel or cowardly, laugh hard, run fast, be kind. She doesn’t remember who she is but she remembers that she likes a good mystery to solve, so when she sees a train stopped in the middle of a forest with strange lights coming from it, well, who is she to stop herself?

She ends up meeting the nicest woman, _Grace_ , so soft and gentle, understanding and not pushing her to announce who she is. Grace brushes her hand against hers briefly and for a moment, she can feel it, the warmth, the comfort

_It sure has been a while since I’ve been this sensitive to telepathy_ , she thinks, but can’t be annoyed for too long as the touch is nice enough and she is tired enough from regeneration that she feels herself finally being able to rest, laid on a lumpy couch in Grace’s home. She dreams of a long-forgotten barn, resting amongst fields of red grass and looking up at an orange sky, and of a nice old lady looking over her as she sleeps.

She doesn’t remember her name, hardly remembers much about herself at all but knows that she needs to save the day, that she has people to protect and that she can save them (will save them, of course, no matter the cost. With her life, if necessary, because of course that is what she does, she is just being kind).

She stands tall on a crane in the face of a creature so willing to disregard life, wearing the remains as badges in his body, proud of what he has done and the harm he inflicts upon people, and she remembers -

_I’m the Doctor_.

Now she knows who she is, she saves people and saves the day, saves people, saves people, she -

She sees Grace lying on the ground, her new friends surrounding her and the horror on their faces.

(Sees Clara lying on a trap street so far from home and so alone and she sees Bill, eyes wide with shock and horror. She sees people looking at her in disbelief, with hope that she can change it, Amy begging her to _bring him back_ and Clara standing on the top of a volcano with the TARDIS keys in her hands)

None of this would have happened if she hadn’t intervened, hadn’t taken them along with her, she is always so selfish, never wanting to be alone, risking their lives just for her own comfort. She knows how fragile these humans are, has had that lesson time and time again but still can’t stop herself. For a moment, for a brief moment she can see the alternate timeline, frail and fading, an alternate reality where she left before they could follow her, and Grace is still there, sitting around a table drinking tea with Graham, alive and whole and - 

The timeline fades before she can reach it and grasp it and pull it into reality. Of course the past is only so malleable, a death like this is fixed now but she wishes, of course she wishes that she could just do _something_. Grace was just trying to help, being brave as so many of them are, they are always so brave. 

_I hate brave people_.

(She is the Doctor, and she saves people).

She goes to the funeral, because how could she not, and watches silently as the mourn (they should never have been mourning in the first place, this is her fault, if she hadn’t fallen there, hadn’t taken them along _but that’s what happens when you touch the Doctor, even for a moment)._ She forces herself to stay because after all she’s done she deserves this bit of pain, her friends deserve for her to do this as well, and she doesn’t even know where else to go, now. 

The TARDIS is gone, again, and she is trapped, again, and if she thinks about it for too long she can’t breathe so instead she gets to work, molding metal beneath her hands and using rudimentary 21st century electronics to build a teleport beam because she can feel where the TARDIS is, where she landed, and she thinks that maybe if she leaves now, if she leaves now she can save them and they will still be alive instead of - 

(trapped in New York City and forced to live the rest of their days out together but not where they were ever meant to be)

(on the bottom of a cyber ship, headed towards a black hole, shot and then converted beyond repair)

(in between one heartbeat and the last, lying on the ground of a trap street in London, far from home and without those she loves around her)

(not able to remember anything about her)

(in a parallel universe with a man that she could never be, but one she so desperately wished she could be)

Of course, of course the universe would never be so kind as to let them be free of her, and she would never be so selfless to demand that they leave, so they start traveling together. She tells herself she is not going to make the same mistakes again, to let them get too close ( _stand too close and people get burned_ ). 

She will protect them, no matter the cost and if that means never telling them about who she is and doing her best to not show them the worst of the universe or the worst of herself then that is a price she is willing to pay. She is just trying to be kind, and if she fails at not being cruel or cowardly then that is a sacrifice she is willing to make.

(Cruel is keeping her past locked away from her friends despite them asking, despite their many questions. Cruel is hiding and nudging them away from the more prying questions and running from the parts of the universe that could expose her)

(Cowardly is running, running so fast and so hard that nothing ever has any time to catch up, it is hardly ever any breaks, it is dropping her friends off in Sheffield for them to rest so she can pop ahead, so that she is never alone. It is not sleeping until she passes out underneath the control room because when she closes her eyes she just sees nightmares, over and over again and wakes up with her fists hurting)

She had told herself to never be cruel or cowardly but how could her past self have predicted this, how could he have known. Grace is dead and she was the first face this face saw, and she will never make that mistake again.

She can feel it, sometimes, this regeneration is so much more telepathically sensitive than she has been in a long, long while. She can feel their doubt, occasionally, but more often their hopefulness, their excitement at traveling through the universe. Human minds, they are so loud, but she hasn’t been sensitive enough for it to matter in a long time. She can feel how they look up to her, how they see her as some sort of pinnacle of morality, someone who always knows what they’re doing, how they look to her when they’re afraid (as so many others have done, always do).

They are always kind, always understanding, respect what she tells them and don’t question when she changes the subject whenever they ask a particularly sensitive question. She thinks, one time, after a particularly pressing round of questions which she is able to escape by the skin of her teeth, about how easy it would be to make their questions go away. A gentle mental suggestion, she could turn their focus elsewhere, redirect their questions to something less scary - it wouldn’t work forever, wouldn’t keep them at bay forever but maybe it would work long enough for her to gather the courage to drop them off at home, to leave and never return and 

_Never cruel or cowardly_

But the old man did not remember what she remembers, could not have known how strongly she feels afraid of losing them, of being alone, trapped with her thoughts. The thought is painful enough that she nearly doesn’t care about the consequences, the injustice of doing such a thing.

She flips a switch and they are off to another planet and another adventure and when they just barely make it out alive the questions are forgotten, at least for now.

She can’t touch anyone, now, not without getting a full force of their thoughts into her mind and she doesn’t intend for this to happen, but she may have skipped a few too many courses on touch telepathy at the Academy. Graham sometimes walks past her and clasps his hand on her shoulder and she can feel it, feel how hard he misses Grace and his hopefulness that his relationship with Ryan will improve, but also feels his trepidation at traveling with the Doctor.

How he has so many questions about who she is and what she is hiding (that is the danger with traveling someone who is old - she can’t hide herself from him as easily, he knows just where to look). Of course, he just wants to protect Ryan and Yaz, and she understands, she really, really does but she knows that if he can see who she really is then they will not be coming back and… 

She never claimed she was a nice person, after all.

She does a good job of hiding, of running, of distracting her friends from the worst of the universe, of not bringing them places that will remember her, that will know who she is, that will show her friends her legacy. Of course, she can’t run forever and has moments, occasional slips but her friends aren’t there, aren’t watching and she can let the mask slip, for a moment, as she bares her teeth at a Dalek in an imitation of a grin and says her name, and watches with vindication as it moves back in fear. 

Of course their questions don’t disappear, and they get more insistent after each incident that they run into but they are always hesitant enough that she can change the subject, go on some long rant about some planet somewhere until they are no longer asking, no longer outwardly wondering and she is able to sit on her own and breathe, just for a moment.

It can’t last forever, of course it can’t and she never thought it would (should be happy at how long it lasted in the first place, at the luck she’s been granted as though the universe was giving her a break, and she should have known better to take it at face value because instead of a break it was as though the universe was winding up to strike her down and)

_Spy...master_

She makes the connection as soon as she sees the flying house and the name confirms it and she thinks about how it sure does feel like she’s falling, falling, even though she’s got both feet on the ground. The revelation knocks the carefully constructed world she had built to pieces, the past she had been running from standing in front of her, and the breath is knocked out of her and she feels her hearts pounding in her chest and 

She thinks about how the Master can shape what her friends think about her, how she’s kept so much about herself a secret that how would they even know if he lies. How he doesn’t even need to lie to find something about her that she hates, how any mention of her past could send them running. How he can mold their opinion of her so easily because she’s been hiding so much from them, they don’t even know where she’s from, and he can pick out the worst pieces of her history and she can lose the only part of her life worth fighting for (it wouldn’t even be hard, would it, she’s got quite the history).

He’s back and she missed him and she hates him and she figured the universe would catch up with her eventually but not like this, not with a smile with too many teeth and a maniacal laugh and a bomb about to crash the plane down to earth and she can’t stop it - can’t stop it and - 

Then she’s separated from her friends, alone at last but of course she ends up making new friends, friends who can’t last forever and after a chase through history and saving humanity again it becomes still and quiet, again.

Noor seems to be more understanding when she tells her she has to wipe herself from her memory, doesn’t even flinch but Ada… 

Ada fights back, pleads, and all she can think about is Donna and her dying as the knowledge in her mind is too big and she needs to save her and needs to protect history. But who said history was important to save? Why not let Ada keep her memories, history is in flux so why should it matter? But it is wrong, and she knows this and she knows what she needs to do and she looks at Ada, pleading, begging to keep her memories and she knows what she needs to do - 

_(Never fail to be kind)_

This is not kind, this is not a kindness this is cruel (never be cruel) but there is no other way, she has to preserve history ( _why is it always up to me?)_

She touches Ada’s face and lays her on the chair and whispers the stories of who she will one day become to her as she sleeps, and Ada will be dreaming about all these wondrous things for a long time yet.

She knows what she needs to do now, heard the Master’s taunting words and hopes beyond hope that it is a lie. Just like last time, when she stood looking out the door of the TARDIS into empty space, how it felt like her hearts had been ripped apart when she realized that Gallifrey was not there, that the Master was lying, always lying, just to get a rise out of her.

This time, it isn’t a lie, because he would only ever lie to spite her and would only ever tell the truth if it would break her, so she stands on the ruins of Gallifrey and looks out into the broken glass dome encasing the city (it always looked so impenetrable when they used to look at it as children, and it stands frail and broken now). 

How many times can her hearts break before she becomes cold? She is always trying, always holding out hope because without hope then what is left but how is she supposed to have hope in moments like this, moments like this when she is looking at the planet and the smell of the berries from the hills of Arcadia are tinged with the ashes of the fiery world around her and - 

Some say that if she stops trying the universe might just go cold but how many times can her heart break before she goes cold does herself and what will happen to the universe then?

She looks out into the death and destruction and wonders

_How many children were on Gallifrey that day?_

How many innocent people were killed, just for this?

Of course the Master did this (they are not so different, after all), of course he would be angry enough to rain death and destruction down onto a planet just because of a lie (didn’t she do the same), and she doesn’t know what this lie could possibly have been but could it truly have been worth it, for all the death of the innocent people? All the people who had nothing to do with it, who were now all gone, all dead, mercilessly murdered?

She stands in the ruins of Gallifrey and thinks about a time long, long ago when she stood in a barn and pressed a button (simultaneously didn’t press that button) and how beautifully Gallifrey burned. How she watched it burn high on power and outrage and the feeling that what she was doing was right because it would stop an endless war and - 

She thinks of the Master standing, murdering the innocent people of Gallifrey for the crimes of few and realizes with a sickening pit in her stomach 

_Maybe we’re not so different after all_

She wonders about how she could have stopped this, if she wasn’t so busy running ( _run fast_ ), and she wasn’t so busy saving the universe ( _be kind_ ), maybe she could have listened and been here when the Master arrived. Stopped him from killing (maybe she would have been there with him, firing the first shot, she’s always been a soldier after all). 

She could have prevented this if she wasn’t so selfish, running off with her human friends, traveling the universe, acting as though nothing was ever happening at home (they would never forgive her for this, but when had they ever forgiven her in the past anyway).

Her friends, her friends of course let her hide because they are kind, they are understanding (they will never understand), she can still feel their thoughts around her and now it is stifling, the comfort (they think she’s just missing Ada or Noor), the patience. 

Of course their patience can’t last forever, she can feel them growing more emboldened as they travel, unwilling to step down now, and more concerned about her well-being as she tries whisking them away on new adventures, new planets. 

She tries to smile (forces her lips to form something resembling a smile but she can’t quite get it right and knows it doesn’t reach her eyes and one time she shows too many teeth and Yaz steps back a moment in shock), tries to act like herself but she can’t, knows that none of her friends believe her act but she can’t stop, can’t let them see what’s underneath. 

She knows she doesn’t talk as much as she used to, knows that when she does it comes out too shrill and too fast and too harsh and that she isn’t fooling anyone, they are just too kind to push her about it. She hasn’t slept in days and can feel their concern when they walk back into the control room and see her still standing there, sometimes staring blankly at the controls before she notices that they’re there, before she can slip on the mask of “don’t worry, everything’s alright!” that she so desperately wants them to believe,

Maybe if they believe that everything is alright then it will be, maybe if she can run for just a bit longer then it’ll all sort itself out, that it’s just a bad dream and she’ll forget that it even happened and - 

Of course it isn’t, because when has the universe ever been so kind?

They corner her, one day, and she knows it’s coming because she can feel their questions getting more insistent, thoughts crowding around her every time they’re all in the room, knows that they’re concerned and worried but most of all they have questions themselves, because she has told them nothing and they’ve been traveling and now they’ve seen a glimpse of her past and want to know more.

This is what she loves about humans, their curiosity, and it’s what makes them so nice to travel with because they always ask the right questions and challenge her but now she stands in front of them and has to look them in the face as she allows them to ask the questions they’ve always wanted to know.

_Who are you, Doc?_

The question sits differently, now, with her entire past changed.

_A Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey_ (it is burned, it is burned and in ashes and she is not even sure what a Time Lord is anymore, what that word even means).

She does not recount her history with pride as she used to but with hesitation, a trepidation to go too deep ( _please don’t die after I tell you this, please don’t become like me, just because you think you know who I am)_

The words sting as she pulls them out, telling them the bare bones of her past without any of the details but even this much hurts. It’s the same description of what she used to tell anyone who asked, with pride and honor and it is now sour and tinged with annoyance. 

They sense this, of course they do and they drop it, always kind, always willing to let her speak on her own terms and she doesn’t deserve them, doesn’t deserve their kindness after everything she’s done, after everything she’s seen ( _never fail to be kind_ ).

Yaz asks, and of course she does, she doesn’t know how she would have ever expected any of them not to ask after learning, asks about seeing Gallifrey. The question should be expected but it punches the air out of her lungs for a second and she can’t breathe as she sees the burning buildings and the broken glass 

( _I could pretend. Just for a bit, I could imagine they were still alive, underneath a burnt orange sky)._

_Another time_ , she replies. Because maybe if she runs hard enough and runs fast enough from this conversation, from her past she can exist in a world where Gallifrey is still standing, when her knowledge of her existence has not been rocked to its core until she doesn’t even know what she is, anymore. 

She thinks about how she could have shown them Gallifrey, in all its glory, and how awed they would be to see it (it’s always been a beautiful planet, burnt orange skies and pastures of red grass, the singing, always the singing, beautiful melodies traveling across the planet).

If she just runs fast enough, runs hard enough, maybe it will be enough. If she just is kind enough, nice enough, perhaps the universe will finally thank her, will finally let her rest ( _can’t I rest?)_. She is not always good, not always kind, sometimes cruel and sometimes cowardly, but maybe if she keeps running then her past can’t catch up with her, and she can be safe ( _no one runs the way you have run for so small a reason)._

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! follow me on tumblr, gallifvrey.tumblr.com


End file.
